October Madness
by AuroraBlix
Summary: A little Halloween-inspired fic: Louisiana has "borrowed" a ship and "borrowed" a few Freelancers and headed off to the Covenant-occupied planet, Arcadia, for a little Halloween fun and a release of pent-up aggression. After all, what better way is there to relax than a little grand theft auto and busting some Covie heads?
1. Chapter One

Agent Louisiana didn't take boredom very well.

Nevertheless, "borrowing" a _Black Cat_-class subprowler—the UNSC _October_, if memory served—with a handful of other Freelancers for a joyride to a forbidden area of war-torn space was stretching the Director's patience to its limit.

Arcadia was classified as off-limits by the UNSC due to continued Covenant presence on the planet, making it a planet in theme with the current holiday season. That didn't explain why the increasingly agitated Louisiana was taking several of her colleagues to the planet, however.

Director Church simply hoped that the agent knew both what she was doing, and exactly what was waiting for her when she came back. Because she _was_ coming back, he was sure...After all, his daughter was among those accompanying the wayward Freelancer...

* * *

Arcadia was a living, breathing jungle.

Thick and dense, everything was covered by green with the occasional bright splashes of color. There was a lot of red, as well. Red like the blood that Louisiana had no problem imagining the planet to be drenched in. To the Freelancer, Arcadia was dripping—was _gushing_ red.

Before the Covies had come back the second time and successfully glassed it, the planet had proceeded to do what it had always done: provide agricultural supplies to Earth and the Inner Colonies. Though its cities had crumbled and been retaken by nature, the people of Arcadia had continued with what they knew, after that first attack had wiped away most of the manmade structures on its surface.

Twenty years before—before Arcadia had been found by the Covenant, before this hellish war had begun—the planet's economy had consisted of agriculture, its function as a vacation getaway, and as resident to the Deep Space Research Array; those of the planet's inhabitants that hadn't reveled in the anarchy had clung to what they knew best after that first attack. After that first, initial destruction of... everything.

Now, after the Covenant's return, the only thing that should have remained on the planet's surface—primary succession, Louisiana thought it was called, when life took root again after complete destruction— was ash. The only thing that _should_ have remained...

But here it was—a lush, untouched wonderland of flora and fauna; no sign of the brutality that had occurred. No sign of the myriad of lives that had needlessly been lost.

The young Freelancer—she was _not_ a child, for children didn't exist in this world, after seeing all the cruelty it possessed—had seen a planet or two glassed in her time. It wasn't pretty. Covies didn't just wipe out all life planet-side, they _carved_ their beliefs into the very flesh of the world.

She had heard somewhere that the glyph they burned onto every human world they destroyed meant 'faith'. How very ironic, Louisiana thought, that people should be killed—_murdered_—by faith. That people should kill with their faith...

But reminiscence about past atrocities was not why she and her fellow Freelancers were there, the silver-armored agent reminded herself firmly. They weren't there to ruminate on the wisdom (more pressingly the _sanity_) in their war with the Covenant, nor the horror of how many innocent, civilian lives had been wrenched away in this _one_ engagement, let alone the entire Covenant campaign against humanity...

The agents of Project Freelancer were struggling their way through the Arcadian wilderness for one reason and one reason only: to find a little peace by getting a little even with the Covies.

It may not be logical, and it may not be entirely sane itself, but it was October 30 and fear was so present in their lives that they felt more than a little inclined to spread the holiday cheer with some of the people who put it there.

_Soon_, Louisiana thought grimly, as she hacked her way through the dense green of the jungle-planet, _blue and purple will drown out the red, and this planet can finally rest knowing that good people didn't just stand by. We got even._

* * *

"What are we doing here?" South griped as yet another thick branch whipped across her visor, having previously been held "politely" by Louisiana when everyone else had attempted to get past it.

"What do you mean?" was the disinterested reply from the silver Freelancer just behind her. "I told you before we left."

South stepped aside when the smaller young woman pushed past, in an effort to keep from toppling over. "No," she objected grumpily. "All you said was that you were going on a field trip and anyone who was as bored as you was welcome to hitch a ride. That is literally _all_ the information you gave us."

The purple Freelancer looked to her darker-armored twin for backup, having caught up with the rest of the group, before remembering that he was off on an _official_ mission with Wyoming. Fucking snipers always stuck together.

"Yeah," piped up a familiar voice from the very front. "I'm kinda wondering why we're here, too, Lou... And why'd you ask 'Lina to scout ahead instead of doin' it yourself?"

Louisiana—who attempted to hit South in the face with another branch but failed—gave up and jogged closer to the front, just behind the tan-armored man who had point. "Carolina's at the top of the board—I'm sure she can handle anything she encounters ahead, so don't worry your pretty little head, lover boy," was her amused reply.

"And I didn't go myself because I'm a hell of a lot more worried about what might happen to the group if I'm not here to guide you idiots, than I am about a highly trained and capable soldier."

"We're highly trained and capable soldiers!" Mississippi protested from the middle of the group, the pale yellow of her armor practically glowing amidst the foliage.

"Yes, dear," Louisiana said with exaggerated patience. "But soldiers in a group are just like normal people in a group—a _person_ is intelligent, logical, and applies common sense to all situations. _People_ are stupid, short-sighted, reckless, and can't be trusted with their own shoelaces, let alone their lives."

Mississippi opened her mouth to argue but was cut off by the return of their Glorious Leader in sea-foam green.

"Yo, Care," Louisiana greeted cheekily. "What's the sitch?"

Carolina, the only one of their group seemingly unaffected by the greenery, spoke with the authority that came with being the _Glorious Leader_. "As far as I can tell, Louisiana, there isn't another living creature on this planet..." Then she shook her head and switched tactics. "What _exactly_ are you planning on doing here?"

"See?" South cut in, before the agent in question could respond. "Even Carolina wants to know why we're here."

Louisiana sighed and threw her hands up in surrender when everyone in the group stopped to look at her expectantly. "Fine, fine, fine... Just gimme a second to talk to Care, alright?"

The silver Freelancer jogged to front of their odd little assortment that was so out of place among the green it was almost funny—scoring a kick at Mississippi's ankle, and watching with satisfaction as the woman hobbled out of range, as she went—and fell into step with their cyan "superior".

"What's up?" She asked, keeping her voice soft enough that she didn't think the others could hear.

Instead of keeping to low tones like her fellow agent, Carolina spoke normally, allowing her voice to carry to the others. "Arcadia has been classified off-limits by the UNSC because of the Covenant's maintained presence on the planet," she said without preamble.

Raising her eyebrows at their Glorious Leader, Louisiana adopted a carefully neutral tone that fooled no one. "Is it? Well, fancy that... I just heard that it was a good vacation spot."

"Nuh-uh, I call bullshit," Mississippi called from the back next to Oregon, who had yet to contribute to the conversation. "You said to pack heavy artillery, a plethora of med-kits, and a fuck-ton of ammo. You even grabbed a jet-pack! What—are you _trying_ to get us killed by Covie energy swords?!"

"Just you, Missi," Louisiana quipped. "And seriously—_plethora_? Do you even know how to use that correctly?"

Smugly, the silver Freelancer could _hear_ Mississippi grind her teeth before snarling, "I'm blonde; not _dumb_!"

"The two aren't mutually exclusive, dear," she fired back at the yellow-armored woman as they walked, before adding under her breath, "Especially not with _your_ record…"

"_Hey_! I _heard_ that!"

"My _God_," Louisiana gasped mockingly, falling back on her time-honored tradition. "Your ears can detect vibrations in the air and transmit them to your brain for translation? It's a _fucking_ miracle."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit," Mississippi snapped.

"And you're the lowest form of _life_, so I suppose things even out," Louisiana replied with false sweetness.

It continued on like that for the next quarter of an hour—while the Freelancers headed farther into the jungle in the direction Louisiana had pointed, and farther away from their "borrowed" ship—with the two young women's insults becoming steadily nastier and more personal. Occasionally, one of the other agents would interject—the mild-mannered Agent Oregon in burnt oranged even going so far as the mention past wrongs, forgotten by one or the other—but no one tried to break it up.

Everyone knew better by then, even their Glorious Leader, and the familiar ease of their bickering was welcome in the oppressive silence of Arcadia's jungle. It was so _creepy_ when nobody spoke, like the entire planet was watching their progress across its surface with malevolent eyes.

It was not a comforting feeling, to say the least.

Eventually-_finally_-Carolina held up a closed fist and ordered them quiet. She crept forward through the brush, having the presence of mind to activate her Chameleon armor enhancement, and disappeared from view.

They all held their breath as they waited for the teal Freelancer to return. Louisiana walked forward silently and laid a hand on York's shoulder, seeing in his body language the furious struggle that was taking place inside his mind:

While Carolina had given a silent command to _stay here_, York's every instinct was screaming at him not to let her out of his sight. To watch her six. To protect her. To _not_ let her go into dangerous and unknown territory without backup... To keep the fierce, red-headed woman he loved _safe_...

He had to physically restrain himself to keep from following Carolina through all that green, and Louisiana's hand on his shoulder was a welcome anchor.

After a few minutes passed, Oregon approached the two silent Freelancers and laid an orange hand on York's other arm and gave it a light squeeze. He looked over to Louisiana—the contrast of she and Oregon, only 5'7" himself, against York was nothing short of hilarious—and she gave a single, grateful nod.

As they waited, Louisiana worried the flesh of her bottom lip between her teeth, and tried not to think about what this latest demonstration of outright stupidity might result in. If she got any of these idiots killed, all for the sake of some Halloween fun and pent-up aggression, she'd walk into a shrink's office of her own volition and talk about her uncaring mother to their shriveled, walnut-sized heart's content.

After what seemed an eternity, they all heard rustling up ahead, and waited anxiously for what would walk through the greenery...

* * *

**A/N: Have a little Halloween fic! Gonna be a couple chapters, and the next will include blood, Covies, and possible character development! Reviews are like Javier Esposito covering himself in whipped cream and letting me... well, um, anyway, gold star for reviewers!**


	2. Chapter Two

**A/N: Okay, so, technically, this was more character-development than bloodshed, but don't despair! There's ****_definitely_**** Covie-killing in the next chapter! Also, sorry this took so long, but "October" seems to have taken on a life of its own, and things have been a little hectic around here lately. Thank you to those who participated in my poll (all three of you), and hopefully "Karma" will be out in a couple of days, but I just realized that this chapter was basically finished. Hooray for introducing new characters, right? I'll put Oregon's personnel file up soon, too, so don't worry! Okay, I'm done now.**

* * *

"You think it's Forerunner?" South asked, to the surprise of the rest of the group. After all, it was a rather… _astute_ observation.

Again, the only person unaffected (did _anything_ affect her?) was Carolina. "It looks like it, and from the way the Covenant are keeping watch, I'd say it's a good bet."

Louisiana exchanged a Look with Oregon, then choked back her shock and jumped in. "Did you see enough to figure out any kind of patterns—security shifts changing, or who they're guarding _from_ even?"

Carolina shook her head in response. "For all I know, they're guarding against _us_."

They stood at a narrow section of the rock face, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, which opened up into a small canyon. The opening had been merely a few meters from where the Freelancers had waited for Carolina to return, but the foliage had been so dense that one might have walked right past it and never have known.

The diversely-colored group of agents took turns peering through the scope of Oregon's sniper rifle as they discussed what lay before them in the canyon, marking positions of Elites in their minds and examining the apparently-Forerunner structures.

Louisiana wasn't sure if it was technically a canyon—though the left half was boxed in by a high wall of rock—as the right half was a sheer drop off a cliff. But she was _positive_ that those buildings were Forerunner, based on the images she'd seen.

Not that she was expecting to find Forerunner artifacts on Arcadia, mind you. The young soldier had only known that the Covenant were still _on_ Arcadia, not _why_.

"Well, maybe they are. They certainly look worried," Louisiana murmured. Then she glanced over at York and grinned. "Maybe we should give them a reason to be."

She heard a low chuckle from her right, and looked over. Oregon was standing with his arms crossed loosely, his shoulders shaking slightly with suppressed laughter.

Louisiana smiled softly at Staff Sergeant Daniel O'Hara's half-brother, and offered him back the sniper. She knew the grudge that the O'Hara brothers had against the Covies—Oregon's _abuelita_ and aunt's family had lived on Harvest; their father and Dan's mother had been on Emerald Cove; Dan's baby sister had been attending school on Bounty.

There was a lot of death in that family that could easily be traced back to the Covenant. When Harvest had been taken, Oregon had just been a little boy, but Emerald Cove and Bounty were recent enough that the wounds were still fresh. As far as Louisiana knew, those events had been what drove the two men to get into contact with one another and join the fight against the Covies.

Which was the reason she'd personally asked him to come along—nothing like a crack-shot sniper with a personal vendetta against your enemy to make you feel warm and fuzzy before a firefight.

Oregon took the proffered rifle and peered through the scope, while the others discussed strategy and called dibs on targets in low voices.

After abut twenty minutes, Oregon spoke up. "Yo, guys! I think there's more to this compound than meets the eye. They've got it extending underground."

It was always a bit of a shock to Louisiana when she heard Oregon speak. Not just because he was so quiet but because, despite his obviously Hispanic features, she expected Dan's brother to share in his stark Irish accent.

Not that she was racist or anything, but the contrast had thrown the silver Freelancer for a loop the first time they'd been introduced and it never really wore off. (The brother of an Irishman being introduced to a woman who spoke fluent Hungarian, and greeting her in Spanish? Louisiana was certain that there was a joke in there if she looked hard enough.)

When Louisiana and the other Freelancers paused and turned to their soft-spoken fellow, he shrugged and looked back through the scope. Then, after a moment, he handed it to Louisiana.

She peered through the sniper as he indicated. "What am I s'posed to be looking at here, 'Regano?"

Usually, Louisiana earned at least a light chuckle when she used her… _spicy_ nicknames for Oregon—her preferred was the obvious "Oregano"—but he simply directed her to look at the little one-room building between their group and the central monolith, surrounded by a miniature maze of walls.

"In roughly thirty seconds"—his low voice came from right next to her ear, his slight Spanish accent slipping into his voice and making her shiver—"two orange Grunts, a red one, and two Jackals with shields will exit that li'l building right there."

Louisiana waited doubtfully, then blinked when the exact Covies he'd described left the tiny structure and made their way up one of the ramps of the main building. She lowered the sniper and tilted her head questioningly at her orange-armored colleague.

Oregon just shrugged and took back his rifle. "While you were all tryin' to riddle out patterns, I decided to just wait an' watch," he murmured by way of explanation.

Any other day, Louisiana might have puffed up and started hissing the way Mississippi and South did, but today she was simply impressed. Instead of getting drawn into easy speculation with the others, Oregon had simple watched and waited.

It was one of the very first combat strategies that Louisiana had learned—**Watch and Wait**—and even _she_ had gotten sucked into making jokes and calling dibs.

He really _did_ take his job seriously.

"South! Missi! Pipe down," Carolina barked before turning her attention to Oregon. "What else did you notice?"

He shrugged easily and handed their Glorious Leader his sniper rifle. "Every couple'a minutes, at least one Grunt—maybe two—is accompanied by a couple'a Jackal guards down below, then resurface about two minutes later. Then they head back and report to that Elite on the far side of the monolith. The one in gold armor. The Elite'll wait for a minute, then send down another unit—sometimes the same one, sometimes not—and repeat the cycle when _they_ come back… All in all, he seems pretty agitated. Always barkin' orders at the Grunts; yellin' at the Jackals; takin' out his sword, fiddlin' with it, and putting back before activating it. Then doing everything over again."

"Wash, rinse, repeat" a smirking Louisiana quipped.

"He seems pretty worried," York remarked, chuckling at the comment. "Any particular reason why?"

"Not a clue," Oregon answered, shrugging again as everyone in the group took turns peering through the rifle scope at the Covenant again. If Louisiana communicated in sighs, then _he_ spoke volumes with each shrug. Granted, the message was usually something akin to _Why are you asking me?_, or perhaps _Yeah, sure, I don't really mind_, but still… "If I could get down below and take a look at what they're down there for, I might be able to find out."

Carolina nodded decisively. "Alright, that's your job then. Missi, you go with him and watch his back."

The yellow-armored woman nodded, but Oregon jumped in quickly. "Actually, don't ya think Mississippi'd be more suited to infantry-work? Presumably, I'm just gonna be sifting through terabytes of data and searching computers. Not really somethin' that a soldier-y soldier would be interested in. We're gonna need to focus more on stealth an' silence than anything…"

He then turned to Louisiana and shot her what she imagined to be a pleading Look. Her cue, it seemed, and she jumped in with an _Oh, Fine!_-sigh.

"I'll go with Rosemary, here," she offered, reluctance in every fiber of her being. "I've gotten into tougher places than this."

"Name one," South and Missi challenged at once, spiteful and disbelieving, respectively.

"The Department of Motor Vehicles" was the silver Freelancer's muttered reply.

"That's a difficult place to get _through_, not _in_," York protested good-naturedly, while Oregon pointed a finger at him to emphasize the man's point.

Louisiana mulled this over for a fraction of a second, before conceding his point. "This is true," she allowed, before trying again. "Mr. Gold's shop?"

"Which branch?" Oregon asked curiously.

"The one in Maine," the diminutive agent clarified.

York jumped in then, shaking his head. "But that one's been broken into all the time. Everyone just ignores the closed sign and it's not like he ever locks it."

Louisiana was vaguely aware of the confused, three-way look that the other women shared, but ignored it to argue her case.

"Yeah, maybe so, but that's Mr. Gold's primary location—he's _always_ there," she said, smirking fondly at the memories. "Besides, there—like here—the more pressing issue is getting _out_, not _in_.

"I mean, have you ever _seen_ that man angry?" Louisiana asked pointedly, looking from one man to the other and back.

York opened his mouth to reply, or so his body language indicated, when their Glorious Leader asserted herself. "_Okay_, it's decided—Oregon will go down below, with Louisiana guarding his six; South and Missi, you two will flank left and head for that grav-lift on the far side of the canyon; and York and I will flank right and head up that ramp to clear your arrival point."

Seeing the potential tragedy that lay in that direction, the silver agent spoke up once again. "All due respect and all, O Glorious Leader," she said carefully. "But are you quite sure that's the most… _efficient_ course of action?"

Louisiana had a feeling that Carolina was arching an eyebrow when she turned.

Regardless, she plowed ahead, seeing the potential tragedy that lay in _this_ direction but choosing to ignore it. "I just mean, South and Mississippi have so many similarities fighting-wise"—_And stupidity-wise_, Louisiana added in her head—"that them together would just make the teams uneven. I know you'd like to be paired with your Love Muffin, here"—_Sorry York_, she apologized silently—"but he should be there to… um, _balance out_ Missi. And _you_ should be there to back up South."

_Please go for this. Please go for this._ Please _go for this,_ Louisiana thought fervently, crossing her fingers discreetly.

After a moment, Carolina nodded resignedly. "You're right, Louisiana—"

"Wait, _what_? Does anybody have a camera? _Please_ tell me somebody recorded that for posterity," the silver-clad Freelancer begged.

"—it wouldn't be fair to pair the two best fighters in the squad together," Carolina finished, ignoring Louisiana's outburst.

Louisiana narrowed her eyes at the woman in turquoise. "… You rotten whore."

Their Glorious Leader ignored that, too—verbally, anyway, because her body language said she was _entirely_ too pleased with herself—and turned to everyone else. "Take a few minutes to track the patrols near your area and move out when you're ready. There's probably a squad or two patrolling outside the canyon as well, so don't engage unless you're ready to have them come down on you, hard."

Louisiana grinned victoriously at the opportunity and opened her mouth, then closed it when her eyes strayed to Oregon, just in time to see him give a tiny shake of the head. He lifted his hand discreetly and activated his one-to-one radio. "Too easy," he warned under his breath.

"Louisiana!"

The agent in question jumped when she realized that Carolina had almost shouted her name. "Yessir," she answered automatically.

Their Glorious Leader crossed her arms skeptically and glared. (Louisiana _assumed_ as much, anyway. Carolina's helmet pretty much made it look like she was _always_ glaring.)

"You and Oregon will have to go first, so you'll have more time to look around before they find out we're here. Wait until the next group of Grunts leave the building right there, before making a break for it."

She and Oregon mumbled quiet acknowledgements and moved to the far edge of the group, closer to the opening of the canyon, while Carolina began to give the others their orders.

The two Freelancers watched in silence for a few minutes as the latest group of Covies entered the structure before them. When they exited, Louisiana waved jauntily at Carolina then followed Oregon down the hill, mindful of the Elite lookout on the main building.

She clicked on her radio when they reached the wall between them and their intended point of entrance belowground. "So," Louisiana began casually, as they skirted the wall. "Why didn't you want Missi to come with?"

Oregon held up a closed fist, and they waited for a breath before dashing around the wall and stopped at the door. It was locked. Of fucking course.

The orange agent knelt down so the control pad was at eye level and began to fiddle around with it. "Because she's a bad shot and only hits her targets when she uses an assault rifle," he answered blandly as the door slid open with a little hiss.

When they entered the little room and the second door that actually led down below failed to open, he turned the questions back on her.

"Why didn't you want her with South?" Oregon asked, before muttering "Maybe we should've gone in groups of threes so York could open this damn door" when the door remained stubbornly shut, despite his intense fiddlings.

Louisiana smirked at that. "With _his_ track record, we probably would have been attacked before he finally got it open. And Missi and South together—by themselves—responsible for their own decisions? What—do you _want_ them to alert the Covenant two minutes in?"

Her valid point earned a snort of amusement from the Hispanic agent in burnt orange, which turned into barely stifle roars of laughter when they heard two people grinding their teeth over the radio and York's voice saying, "You guys realize that you're broadcasting on an open channel, right? We can all hear you."

The silver Freelancer choked back her near-hysterical giggles to apologize for bad-mouthing his infiltration skills, hearing the well-disguised hurt in his voice, but the door suddenly opened.

"Sorry, gotta go," she stage-whispered. "The show's about to start."

Grinning, the two agents started down the ramp that led belowground.

* * *

Agent Louisiana wouldn't necessarily describe herself as much of anything akin to "macho", or as a particularly cocky individual. But it would still take either large quantities of hard liquor or a moment of profound, introspective clarity to ever get her to admit to the rather high-pitched, girlish _"Eek!"_ she gave when she and Agent Oregon entered the underground room.

In her defense, however, it _was_ rather jarring to open a door to a room that was supposed to be empty, only to come face-to-face with an equally startled Grunt.

The little guy (who was, technically, taller that Louisiana when she was out of armor) quaked in fear for a split-second before throwing up his arms, giving his own frightened squeal, and attempting to run off.

Reacting on the pervasive instinct of self-preservation, the silver Freelancer lunged forward, placing one hand on either side of the Grunt's head and giving it a vicious twist. The small(ish) Covenant soldier(ish) crumpled to the ground silently, his neck quite effectively snapped, and his head at an odd, unnatural angle.

"You can come out now," Louisiana murmured over her shoulder, after she'd verified that the immediate contained no more surprise guests, casting an amused expression at her companion.

"Right," Oregon answered, his voice low, trying for indifference to the scene that had occurred before him and just missing. "I'll admit—that was _not_ what I was expecting."

Louisiana grunted in response as she pulled her DMR from its place on her back and her colleague removed his M6G pistol from the holster on his thigh.

"I thought you said this place was empty," she said in a low voice, casting around for any other signs of life before she dragged the Grunt's body up the incline and into the room aboveground.

Oregon huffed his approximation of indignation, before protesting mildly, "I never said anything of the kind. All I said was that groups of Covenant were coming down here—I never claimed to know why, _or_ if someone else was already down here."

The shorter of the two Freelancers sighed, aware that she'd been beat, before rolling her shoulders and gripping her gun with renewed vigor.

"Well, who knows? Could be fun," she said putting as much chipper into her voice as she could physically manage. Her orange-armored companion was doubtful of the veracity of that statement—when things diverged from the plan within the first ten minutes, it usually wasn't a good sign—however, he followed her dutifully back down.

* * *

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed, and what do you think of Oregon?**

**Be honest, guys, who caught the OUAT reference? **

**Lots of love for reviewers, and I'm sorry if you didn't like this chapter, but I really don't care!**

******ADDENDUM: If you need help visualizing everything, the above ground portion is basically the "Installation 04" map from Halo Anniversary. I'm just really bad at describing locations.**


	3. Chapter Three

**A/N: Okay, fine, I'm a bad person. Sorry, but something got effed up and I lost most of my progress on this, so I sort of rage-quit, then promptly forgot. (I'm a terrible person.) Um, so this underground environment is sort of like the pulse-generator rooms from the "Halo: Combat Evolved" level, "Two Betrayals". Again, I'm just so bad at describing places and things, I hope that helps. For those of you that actually play Halo.**

* * *

"Hey, Oregon," Louisiana shouted over her should, firing her pistol and ducking away from a plasma grenade blast as she did. "Remember, like, fifteen minutes ago when I said this might be fun?"

Yeah," he called back to her. "Eating your words yet?"

The silver Freelancer grinned under her helmet at her comrade's naiveté, then popped off a few more shots—taking out two Grunts and a Jackal with pinpoint accuracy. "Are you kidding? This is the most fun I've had in _months_! How you doing with the computer-y shit?"

Louisiana crept to the one open entrance to the room they inhabited, sensing a lull in the enemy's advance, and peered around the corner. She quickly pulled back as the two remaining Jackasl fired their plasma pistols at the convenient target that was her head.

The radio clicked on and she could hear Oregon give a dry, humorless little chuckle. "I'm sifting through terabytes of heavily—_hilariously_—encrypted information, most of which is jack-shit in the context of what I'm trying to find. How you _think_ I'm doin', _chica_?"

"I think you're doing fabulously," Louisiana grunted as she tuck-and-rolled halfway across the corridor outside their room, taking cover behind one of the six-foot-tall slabs of rock in the middle of the hall. "Keep up the good work, bro. I gotta say, you really—Ah, hell! Hold on a sec."

The female agent spotted an opening and took the opportunity, smirking as she slid the Standard Issue field knife from its sheath on her shoulder. She darted around her cover when she heard the steadily decreasing bursts of white-hot plasma cease altogether.

Louisiana managed to clip one Jackal in the head with a well-aimed kick, before sinking her blade up to the hilt into the temple of his companion.

The first one was in a panic by the time she yanked the knife out of his comrade and turned to him—his eyes kept darting from his gun to Louisiana and back, before he gave up and decided to just throw it at her head.

The Freelancer easily plucked it out of the air and watched in a mild state of amused disbelief as the Covenant soldier turned tail and ran, chattering something in its own language. (Considering the little she'd picked up about the Kig-yar and their employment by the Covie higher-ups as mercenaries, Louisiana had the vague sense that he was basically saying, "Fuck it, I don't get paid enough for this!")

Unfortunately for the alien merc, Louisiana wasn't willing to let him get away and consequently take additional information to his superiors aboveground—the ones that had sent him and his squad down there to eradicate she and Oregon in the first place.

With a mental sigh and shrug—usually, she was willing to let infantry troops take off, if they weren't going to try to kill her anymore; it was the Elites that she had to watch out for—Louisiana kicked the Jackal's legs out from under him before he made it more than a few steps.

"Sorry," she apologized as she pinned the Covie soldier to the floor, her boot on his neck. After all, the silver-clad agent _did_ kinda feel a little bad. Not bad enough to stop her from pulled out her pistol again and emptying the rest of the clip into his skull, though.

When the echo of the last round faded away, Louisiana peered around for any sign of additional enemies. Her motion-sensor showed the surroundings as all-clear, but the Freelancer tried not to rely on it too heavily. They could be fooled, and she found that using your own eyes, ears, and intuition was a lot closer to fool-proof than any tech.

Not entirely satisfied, the young soldier dropped the useless M6G, stuffed the now-dead Covie's plasma pistol into the empty holster on her thigh, and made her way back into the room with Oregon.

Still feeling vaguely uneasy, Louisiana was sure not to put the opening at her back as she approached her burnt-orange companion.

"We clear?" Oregon asked distractedly, his focus mainly on the giant, Forerunner computer set into the column of metal-rock (what the hell was that stuff that the Forerunners always used? Super-rock?) at the center of the room.

"Mmm," she responded non-committally. The back of her neck was prickling uncomfortably and she had the sudden urge to double-check their surroundings. "Um, I'm gonna go… check the perimeter."

Something wasn't right.

Her companion glanced up at the silver soldier, and gave a distracted "Uh-huh", before looking back at the screen with a "What the—?"

Not particularly reassured by that, Louisiana left the orange-armored Freelancer to it, checking the makeshift barricade they had erected to block the second entrance to the room before she stepped out.

Louisiana's eyes darted into every corner as she crept through the corridor that wrapped around the room with the giant computer-thing. Or perhaps it was actually a room at the center of a bigger room, and she simply mistook it for a wrap-around hallway.

Whatever.

Forerunner architecture was weird _however_ you looked at it. Everything was so stark and geometric, giving off an air of sterility and a vague aura of disapproving superiority.

As she reached the second entrance to the room—blocked by piling those purple, box-like ammo repositories that Covies always brought with them, one on top of the other—which was located directly across from the other in the room, Louisiana's blood went cold.

Instead of the little _bleep-bloop_ noises of her comrade messing around with the Forerunner tech, or Spanish curses being muttered under his breath, she heard Oregon shout, "Shit! Contact; huge _fucking_ contact!"

Alarmed, Louisiana knew that there was no way she could sprint fast enough to make it to the other entrance before the Hispanic Freelancer was either hurt or killed. Instead, she crossed to the opposite wall and used that little ledge that jutted out at eye-level to hoist herself up and hump onto another hunk of super-rock positioned in the middle of the all, just in front of the Covie-purple (as she had dubbed that particular shade of violet) barricade.

Using her momentum, Louisiana jumped again—activating the jet-pack she'd had the foresight to grab on her way off the _Mother of Invention_ in a short burst as she did—and managed to clear the short wall of purple.

The silver agent crashed to the floor, and was able to roll to her feet just in time to see the nearly-invisible force that held Oregon in the air by his throat, drop him to the ground.

Louisiana pulled the plasma pistol from its ill-fitted holster, aimed it at was she guessed was central-mass, and pulled the trigger. She suddenly understood the dead Jackal's actions from before when all it did was make a single click.

_Well, just fuck_, she thought, panicking just a little, as she followed that Covenant soldier's prime example and chucked the useless hunk of metal at the shimmering form's head.

When the alien gun made contact, it disrupted the field that cloaked the large figure, and the form solidified into a good eight feet of pissed-off Sangheili in dark gold armor.

"Well, just fuck," Louisiana groaned as she ducked to avoid the three shots of plasma that the Elite sent her way. Unfortunately, she didn't see that kick it aimed at her until it was too late.

_Fuckin' thing kicks like a goddamned giraffe,_ the Freelancer thought as she flew back and crashed into the purple barricade with enough force to knock the boxes down on top of her.

Louisiana desperately struggled to right herself, kicking the boxes away from her body, when she saw the huge Covie turn back towards Oregon.

"Oh, no _fucking_ way," Louisiana grunted as she reached her feet and threw herself on the Elite when he turned his back on her.

Placing one foot on the abnormally high ankles of his digitigrades legs, the silver Freelancer hoisted herself up with the assistance of one hand on the Elite's shoulder.

Praying (to whomever it was that deigned to listen to murderers, thieves, and alexithymic soldiers), the Freelancer reached her left hand around the Covie's face to grip the right side of his helmet while her right hand followed it to rest on the left side, and twisted as hard as she physically could. The Elite's neck snapped and Louisiana jumped off just before his body fell to the ground.

She stared at the dead body and felt a vague sense of déjà vu—but this time, however, the Hispanic Freelancer wasn't cleverly concealed in the branches of a tree with a sniper trained on any potential threats. This time, _he_ was the one that had nearly died.

Panting from the combination of fear, adrenaline, and exertion, the silver-clad agent held a hand out to her comrade. Oregon grasped her forearm and gave her a grateful nod when she heaved him to his feet.

"What the hell happened?" Louisiana pressed once he'd gotten his balance, caught between relief that he wasn't dead and irritation that she'd almost let him get that way.

Her burnt-orange companion rubbed his throat almost compulsively as he slowly moved back to the computer and peered at one of the screens.

"I—" He gave a cough, then tried again. "I found something in the Covie data-net, something important that was generating a lot of chatter. I was about to call you when I… _heard_ something, I guess, behind me. I turned around and saw the Active Camo shimmer. I just had time to try and warn you before the bastard picked me up; then promptly tossed me aside like a ragdoll when you came crashing in."

The male Freelancer looked up from his fiddling with the Forerunner tech, and jerked his head at the now-demolished wall of purple they had hastily created when the two had first entered the structure. "How'd you even get over that thing? It's taller than you are by at least a foot."

His young companion gave a superior little smirk, as if to say, _Oh, you poor, sweet, foolish boy_. "Jet-pack," she replied easily enough, though. Then added after a moment of silence, "And luck."

Oregon chuckled at the admission, before the computer made a lot of frantic beeping noises and his attention snapped back to it. _"Hijo de puta…"_he muttered under his breath.

Louisiana frowned and walked up behind the agent who was now swearing quite colorfully in Spanish. She put a hand on his shoulder as she leaned forward to look at the screen, attempting to make sense of the symbols that ran across it.

"What's up, buttercup?"

Oregon glanced at the young woman before speaking. "I hacked into the Covenant data-net using the interfaces they brought here themselves, but there's a ton of interference, so I'm using the Forerunner transmitter in the giant building aboveground to boost the signal."

"O-_kay_," Louisiana said slowly, with him so far. "And that's… bad?"

"What? Oh. No, most Covie technology has been reverse-engineered from Forerunner artifacts they found on other worlds, so it's doubtful they'll even notice," Oregon replied distractedly, then fell silent.

Louisiana frowned again, and snapped her fingers in front of his helmet. "Yo, Earth to Nutmeg. Er… _Arcadia_ to Nutmeg."

"Hm? Oh, sorry," he apologized. "So, anyway, the use of Covenant frequencies means that I have automatic access to low-level, basic-encryption transmissions, and since I'm using that booster, there's an additional Forerunner signature that gives me access to a lot more high-level and sensitive material because it indicates to them that I'm, like, a general or something with legit Forerunner tech."

The silver-armored Freelancer held in a sigh. She _wanted_ to snap at him to _get on with it_, that she didn't need the entire history of his exploits in the last half-hour, but then again, she really didn't.

Oregon was Dan O'Hara's brother, and a good guy besides. He wasn't trying to annoy her, and he wasn't strutting about like a peacock preening his feathers—he was just being thorough, and was actually polite enough to tell her his process of discovering… whatever he was getting at.

With that in mind, Louisiana made an effort to pay attention to what he was saying.

"When I was perusing the chatter, though," the orange Freelancer continued, "I stumbled across something. Like, super-ultra-top-secret kind of shit: the Covies are _looking_ for something here on Arcadia."

Louisiana blinked twice.

"Seriously?"

Her companion nodded and pulled up some kind of schematic on the screen, certainty and decisiveness in every movement. The female agent squinted at the screen, trying to make sense of the characters. "Is that it? What they're looking for?"

When Oregon nodded, Louisiana's mind went into overdrive. "Huh," she murmured thoughtfully. "I'm sure ONI will be _very_ interested to hear about that…"

"Yeah, we'll have to report it when we get back," Oregon said innocently, and she smirked evilly at the thought of simply 'forgetting' to tell those fuckers. Seriously, though, there wasn't a member of the military _alive_ that didn't grind their teeth at the mention of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Suffice it to say that their spooks were… not nice, to anyone, ever. That kind of superior attitude tends to generate a little ill-will…

Then the Hispanic man turned serious. "That's not all, though; I found the reason why that Elite upstairs was so anxious. Technically, this little trip of theirs is about as sanctioned as ours—they've only got one support Cruiser, and _it's_ under orders to leave any soldiers groundside and get the hell out of dodge if things go sideways. Now, that big guy upstairs was demanding constant reports from the Grunt techies that were down here because their long-range sensors detected _three_ human ships on-course for Arcadia."

Oregon stopped everything and turned to face Louisiana fully, looking her straight in the eye, and his voice turned meaningful. "They're coming from _two_ different directions."

Agent Louisiana of Project Freelancer swore, loudly and colorfully.

"_Hijo de puta!_ You don't think—?"

The Hispanic Freelancer nodded. "The lone frigate's coming this way from the right direction."

"_Shi-i-it_," the young woman groaned, and turned away from the screen. She activated her radio as she walked over to the entrance, hands on hips and staring at the wall without seeing it. "Yo, Care, we got trouble."

After the initial crackle of static, Louisiana could hear the sound of battle—gunfire from both types of weapons, a couple of grenade explosions, and an (in)decent amount of swearing—before their Glorious Leader responded.

"Oh, good! Can't ever get enough of that," Carolina replied, exertion evident in her voice. Over the radio, Louisiana could hear "Carolina! On your six!", then a brief pause, and a grunt (presumably as she tuck-and-rolled out of the way).

Several seconds later, there was the sound of a plasma grenade exploding and a female voice shouting, "Yeah, three points!"

"Nice arm, Missi," Carolina congratulated, before turning her attention back to the radio. "What'd you two find out?"

Louisiana glanced at her friend, who had been reabsorbed by the computer, before speaking, not particularly sure how to say it. "Well, it looks like Mom and Pops aren't too happy with our little field trip, and are coming to pick us up… And it seems they saw fit to bring a couple of the neighbors along with them."

"Dammit," she heard Carolina swear. "Are you sure?"

The silver Freelancer looked over at Oregon uncertainly, and spoke when he didn't. "I don't think there's any way we _can_ be sure. Cinnamon says that we're using Covie tech, so that means Covie frequencies. The only way we can verify is by contacting them and requesting confirmation… Somehow, I doubt that's a very good idea. Like I said: trouble. How's it going on your end?"

_"Fire in the hole!"_ Carolina shouted, and Louisiana heard the tell-tale _boom_ of a frag. "It's going. Not bad, but not good either."

The younger woman opened up her mouth to express sympathy and promises of back-up, but was cut off by Oregon. "Uh, I hate to ruin your day more, Carolina. But things just got worse."

While he spoke, the agent in burnt-orange began moving around the room—collecting a lot of grenades and tossing Louisiana a needler to replace her missing M6G—before striding out purposefully.

Blinking in surprise, the young soldier followed Oregon through the corridor, heading for the exit, listening as he spoke.

"Remember when I said that the Cruiser in atmo is under orders to leave if things get hot?" He directed this question at Louisiana, but it was clearly for the benefit of their Glorious Leader. "Well, clearly the Covies flyin' it aren't in agreement with their Powers That Be, 'cause they just dispatched a half-dozen more drop-ships, and a lot more Banshee escorts. And they're heading our way."

The two Freelancers paused as Oregon punched in the code to open the door, and started up the incline. Louisiana walked up backwards with her DMR pointed firmly down the ramp, paranoia centered around huge and invisible enemies taking out her Hispanic teammate gripping the silver agent with heart-stopping immediacy.

"Stay cool, _chica_, 'cause things are about to get _very_ hot," he warned when they reached the room aboveground, through which they had originally entered.

"Acknowledged. Carolina out."

Oregon turned to look at his young comrade.

"Now this, _chiquita_," he said, a smile and the threat of something darker in his voice. "_This_ is where the real fun begins."

Louisiana stared for a moment after he disappeared through the door that led outside, before her lips curled into a vicious smirk. Readjusting her grip on her gun, she followed him through the door.

_Oh, yeah,_ she thought to herself as the full sound of battle reached her ears. _This is_ definitely _what I came here for._

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so, First) I realize that the fight scene here is extremely similar to the one in "Please Remain Silent" and there's an explanation for that: ****_I'm. Really. Fucking. Stupid._**** I wrote PRS before I retyped this chapter, and had already posted it before I went back and noticed. And I'm too damn lazy to change it.**

**Second) For those of you who are familiar with the Halo 'verse, you'll realize that I keep dropping in elements of it into my stories. For those of you who aren't so familiar, I deeply apologize. In my mind, they're the same universe, so I'm sorry if the references go over your head, but I can't help it because I'm delving deeper and deeper. And I just bought a couple of the Halo novels, and I'm sure that doesn't help.**

**Thirdly) All that radio frequency, signal boosts, data-net, encrypted info crap? I totally made it the fuck up based on the oh-so-tiny amount that I understand, and the stuff I've picked up from the Halo campaign. I'm sorry that it's completely wrong, but if you tell that it is, I will ignore you. Probably ostracize you, too (unless you're actually ****_helpful_**** and tell me how, and why, and where, and how to fucking ****_fix_**** it). Because I am completely aware of how much I ****_don't_**** know, and guess what? This is fanfiction.**

**Okay, I'm done. Reviewers are loved. Hate-reviewers shall be salted and burned in accordance with the Winchester Way.**


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